Image courtesy of IEM

This past weekend most of Iowa saw its first measurable snowfall of the season. 

According to the Iowa Environmental Mesonet, Adair reported 2.2 inches of snowfall, while Perry had 1.2 inches and Bagley saw around one inch. The National Weather Service reported Jefferson having 1.3 inches of snow. 

The Iowa Department of Transportation was ready with its plows and snow removal materials. According to the DOT Winter Operations Administrator Craig Bargfrede, he says all of their equipment was switched over to snow removal since October 1st and they had about 255,000 tons of salt across its various locations in Iowa, which was 105 percent of capacity. He points out the DOT’s travel website, 511ia.org is chalk full of information for winter travel, including “green” which is seasonal driving to “purple” which means “travel not advised.”

“Our garage staff monitor that and then during (winter) events, they update those road conditions as conditions change. We try to keep around a minimum of two hours that we’re making sure that those conditions are updated and any other information that is needed for the public gets posted on there, for example like towing restrictions. The other thing that’s posted on there is our plow cam photos. We have just over 900 trucks in our fleet. Each one of those has a camera in the cab, forward facing, that takes photos every five minutes.”         

The National Weather Service is estimating that after today and tomorrow with the daytime highs in the mid-30s, temperatures will be hovering around the mid to lower 40s for the rest of this week.